An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Spiritual Experience
A more general term, spiritual experience may be
 
preferred for experi-
ences which do not reflect any specifically religious beliefs, but which 
give an indication of an influence which is inexplicable in any down-
to-earth way. Such events often lead to a wide, all-embracing view of 
the spiritual dimension of life. They might lead to a search within 
religious traditions, or may simply be absorbed into the lives of the expe-
rients as an underlying acceptance of this other dimension, often felt to be 
one of love, comfort and guidance. However, the experience might bring 
awareness of dissatisfaction with the everyday, triggering spiritual unrest 
and leading to a spiritual search.
This category is perhaps the most numerous, in that many people do 
not in fact find that the experiences are limited to any particular religious 
tradition. Some people are concerned to stress that their experiences are 
not religious but spiritual,
My experience occurred when I was a child between ten and eleven 
years of age. Each day I was drawn to stand at a bedroom window at the 
back of our family terraced house in Pont-y-moel. I looked out between 
the sidewalls of the house across a narrow valley to the lower mountain 
levels of Mynydd Maen, which then rose steadily towards Twm Barlwm. 
For a year I was compelled to stand and wait and watch. 
On a day in March a column of luminous light appeared from one 
of the empty levels cut into the mountain which had been used for 
pigeons cots. It enclosed a figure, grew upwards and as it touched the 
clear blue sky disappeared, the waiting was over. I had no need to 
return to the window. I was not surprised at the ‘appearance’ but I was 
surprised that the intense need to go to the window had gone. This 
‘appearance’ is as clear to me today as it was then, and I know that 
I experienced in that moment, true reality. It is the single most impor-
tant experience of my life.
I do not consider this to be a religious but a spiritual experience. 
The difference in definition is fundamental to the journey of self-
discovery I have taken through my art. 

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Religious and Spiritual Experience
14
My experience has been the single most important influence on my 
life and work. I believe it was a glimpse of a true reality. My work 
as an artist and writer has been an exploration of the relationship 
between an inner world and the outer world through visual and 
written language. [100053]